Walk the Line
by songsinblue
Summary: Post New York, Agents Romanov and Barton retreat to a safe house to decompress. Together they work through the past, present, and maybe their future. But in their line of work, there will always be a fine line between safety and danger, sanity and fear, business and pleasure.
1. Chapter 1

1.

Director Fury is distracted from a pile of paperwork regarding the New York incident when two of his best agents walk in. Well, Barton walks in, and he's dragging Romanov behind him. "Sir," says Barton, "We are both taking two weeks' leave starting today."

Fury looks up slowly and fixes his gaze on him. Agent Barton, having launched that announcement, looks around, unsure what to do next. The cuts and bruises from last week's battle are healing nicely, but he still has a slightly desperate cast to his eyes, worry that hasn't worn off even now. Behind him Agent Romanov stands silent, letting him grip her arm. She's an attractive woman, of course, but as Fury glances her direction, he realizes she's more of a beautiful wreck than anything else at the moment. Her hair looks unwashed, she looks like she hasn't slept in a month, and there's a bit of a tremor in her muscle tone as well.

"All right," says Director Fury, and bows his head back to his scribbling.

Barton cocks his head. "I, uh, all right?"

"You heard me, Agent," says the Director, not unkindly. "Fill out your slips and get out of here. Report back for training in two weeks."

"Yessir, thank you," says a wide-eyed Agent Barton, and he takes a step back. Romanov looks at Fury, gives him a quick nod, and lets herself be towed out of the office again.

"I'm not taking no for an answer," Clint says to Natasha, standing on her doormat an hour later.

"You are if I tell you no," the Black Widow snaps, but her usual sass isn't there.

Clint Barton grabs his partner by the shoulders and looks down at her. "Look in the mirror. I know for a fact you've been up for three days straight, you haven't given yourself any sort of break from training after what happened, and honestly, Natasha, you look like hell. Will you please just get in the car."

Romanov doesn't say yes. But she doesn't say no, either. She rubs one hand across her pale face, turns around and goes upstairs. She reappears with a sleek black duffel over her shoulder. Clint swallows his sigh of relief and she follows him to the vehicle silently. He opens her door for her, she slides in, and he gets in and starts the car.

He drives, knowing the way by intuition as much as guesswork, no maps involved. Natasha looks over at him. "How are you doing?" she says.

"I'm getting by," he answers. "I just think we need this, you know? A vacation."

"Yeah," says Natasha, and they are quiet again. She dozes with her eyes open for hours, lost in thought. When, late in the evening, the headlights finally sweep over a long gravel road, trees and grasses and finally a house, tucked back in a valley, she thinks they are in Iowa somewhere. It's where her partner was born. If not Iowa, then Nebraska, or Kansas, somewhere Midwest. A flyover state. "Where are we?"

"Safe house," says Clint, killing the engine. "Come on, it's not haunted, I swear." He grins, something sickly behind it. Natasha knows- the _house_ may not be haunted… She lets it go, helps him grab their bags, and they climb up on the porch. He fishes in his jacket pocket and jams the key in the lock, and just like that, they're stepping into the farmhouse. Natasha tries to stand still, but involuntarily she drops the luggage and draws the loaded pistol from the back of her jeans.

"Tasha." He looks at her with those pale blue eyes, half scolding, half sympathy, and it's the sympathy that makes her want to put the muzzle to her own temple. She glares back, unable to relax, and notices the shake in her grip. Clint puts down his bags, draws his own gun- the one firearm he carries- and together they go through each and every room, making sure they're alone.

When the house is clear, they go back upstairs and settle into the bedroom. There is a four-post bed, worn and comfortable, and a futon against the opposite wall. They've slept together many times, but Natasha takes the futon. Clint offers to switch her but she flatly refuses, and so he crawls into the bed, weapons arranged neatly on the nightstand and under the bed within easy reach. She goes through the same ritual, laying out knives and guns and her Widow's Bite like dreamcatchers around her.

In minutes her partner, consummate professional that he is, is asleep, but she lays awake, watching the moon creep agonizingly across the night sky through the curtains and aching from weariness, but unable to let go. She drifts off for an hour or so, but by the first hint of dawn, she's gone.

Clint wakes to an empty room. He sighs and crawls out of the bed, pulls on a t-shirt and goes down the creaky old stairs to the kitchen. The house is silent, but then so is Natasha Romanov. He finds a carton of orange juice in the refrigerator and pours a glass, then steps out onto the wraparound porch.

She's sitting on the railing. She's perfectly balanced, the rising sun is shimmering on her flame-colored hair, and she knows he's there, but doesn't move. "Morning, sunshine," he says, unable to keep from smiling. "You're up early."

She turns her head and gives him a slight smile. "So are you," she says. "Big plans for the day?"

"God, no," he says. "This is about not having plans, remember?"

She rolls her eyes. "Barton, you know I hate surprises. Plans keep you alive." He ignores that, stretches intently, and joins her at the railing, looking out into the hills. The countryside is emerald, mist rising off the trees, and he hopes this is the beginning of something sweet, something easy and safe for once.

"I'm going into town this afternoon for groceries," he says. "What do you want?"

"You're really serious about this, aren't you," she says. When he gives her a questioning look, she goes on. "This little country house, middle of nowhere, two weeks of vacation…"

"Decompressing, Natasha," he says. "You've made me do it a dozen times when I got messed up. That's what this is."

"Well, maybe you should find someone else to play house with," she says, and slips off the railing, brushing past him into the house. Clint listens to her go, kicks the railing, and stares out into the morning. Natasha goes upstairs and cleans her guns. She hears him start the car later in the day. She lets him go. After she's finished with her weaponry, she tucks her favorite two pistols into her jeans and wanders through every room in the house again. The safe house is sparse, but there's a charm to that. She likes the old furniture, the dust on the windowpanes, the squeaky wood floors.

She's tired still, it's a perpetual condition of her existence these days, but something in her can't sit down, can't even stand in one place for long. She has to keep moving, and so she goes outside and explores the surroundings. Cornfields off in the distance, forest in the other direction, prairie and a creek in another. She hikes around for a bit and allows herself a bit of target practice, but she doesn't want to waste bullets. When she walks back into the clearing, Clint's just pulling the car up. He hands her a box of fresh strawberries without saying anything. They sit at the little kitchen table and eat. He makes a sandwich, she just eats the strawberries.

"In a few days," he says, "I've got to meet up with some old friends. You can come if you want."

Natasha hasn't been in a joking mood much recently, but the fresh air and the food [even if it's the first thing she's eaten all day] have loosened her up a little. "Friends? I thought you were a spy, Barton. We don't have friends." He reaches a foot under the table and pushes her chair away. She responds by hooking her foot around the table leg and distancing him from his sandwich. They aren't laughing yet, but their tired smiles are enough for the moment.

"Well, we have people we don't really feel like assassinating," he says, and that gets a real smile, considering their past history. She gets up and puts their dishes in the sink, and goes to sit on the faded couch. There is an old television, but he comes and sits on the other end of the couch without turning it on.

"Nothing on?" she says.

"Nothing I want to see," he answers. "I haven't been able to look at a news report for a week." She nods, and before he knows it, he's spilling it out, again, about the wreckage the battle had left him mired in, the way he's scared to know how bad it really was, scared to know the body count, or how the public was reacting to the haphazard rescue by their motley group. He's opening up to her, and it's a quarter of an hour before he realizes that he meant to get _her_ to open up to him. Natasha is such a good listener, she can draw any story out of him, even the ones he hates.

Finally he yawns, and she says, "Go to bed. You need the rest."

He sputters, "Natasha, you need it more than I do. You're killing yourself. Don't think I don't notice…" She gives him a warning look and tells him she'll be up soon, so he makes his way upstairs and falls into the king-size bed, hoping she'll sneak in beside him.

He wakes up at three in the morning and she's still not there. He gets out of bed, sleep-fogged and annoyed, and finds her sitting on the couch in front of the tv. An old black-and-white movie is playing on god knows what channel, and her eyes are half open. "Seriously?" he snaps.

"Leave me alone," she says, blinking back her tiredness.

"Fuck that," he answers, and shuts off the tv. She starts to protest, but he gathers her roughly off the couch and starts for the stairs. In his arms she struggles for a half-second, and he tenses for a fight- if she's in the mood she could kick his ass in hand-to-hand- but then she goes limp, letting her eyes close as he carries her up the stairs.

"I'm just so tired," she gasps.

"I know," he says, "I know." Clint lays her out on the futon she's taken to, fervently hoping she'll choose his bed instead, but she's too far gone. Her breathing is uneven, almost frustrated sobs, but she doesn't open her eyes again. She mumbles something he doesn't catch; it might not have been in English, and he puts a sheet over her. "Just sleep, Tash. I'm right here. Just relax." He pauses for a second, then gently slides two knives out of her wrist sheaths, laying them on the floor where she can reach them. Her breathing has steadied out and she's down for the count. He climbs back into his own bed, steals one last glance at her sleeping form, and closes his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha jolts awake, her eyes sliding wildly around the room, terrified to see the pale blue glow of Loki's eyes in the blackness, still more terrified she's missed them. She forces herself to breathe properly, and hones in on the sound of her partner breathing. In the morning she will be surprised by how quickly she falls back into sleep. The constant anxiety that's kept her awake and moving the past few weeks is not by any means gone, but at least she can begin to catch up on sleep.

She sleeps late that morning, and it's Clint who's already in the kitchen fixing breakfast when she pads downstairs. He's humming under his breath, some old classic American country or rock song that Natasha hasn't heard. "Hey," he says. "What are you hungry for?"

"I'm not," she says, "I think I'm going to go-"

"Nope," he says.

"What?"

"You are sitting down at this table and eating something, if I have to tie you to the chair. You aren't eating enough." She rolls her eyes and lets him put two slices of toast and a cup of coffee in front of her. He knows the way she likes her coffee; full of sweet cream and sugar. She'll drink it black, sure, but secretly she prefers it sweet and milky. He asked her why once, and she told him, "There's enough bitterness in the world already, Barton."

After breakfast they go out into the fields and Clint practices with his bow and arrow, showing off, making trick shots, while Natasha scales trees and explores. Later she slices through the yard, spinning and throwing punches at invisible assailants, and he watches her with awe and affection. He cons her into eating lunch with him too, and they laze around on the porch talking about memories, recalling their numerous battles, all the times they've pulled off the impossible, cheated death, rescued each other.

Clint, poking around upstairs, finds an old acoustic guitar, which he proceeds to torture for the next half hour. It's out of tune, but his calloused fingers can pick out chords all the same. Natasha tells him, the way she always does, that she never expected an archer, an assassin, to be so fond of an instrument. He tells her, as usual, that if his fingers can brush one string they can brush another, and that he learned in his days with the circus.

That night, he pulls her close on the way upstairs. "Sweet dreams, okay?" She hugs him back, and his warmth, the smell of his shirt, make her think of jumping him there on the staircase, up against the wall, her nails in his shoulders… but she doesn't. She lets it go, and just squeezes his hand.

"Getting there," she says. She takes the futon for one more night, unwilling to wake him with her thrashing in the middle of the night. Her partner moans and shivers in the early hours with nightmares, and she lies still, afraid to wake him, afraid to let him suffer. He always snaps awake, collects himself, and goes back to sleep. She wishes forgetting everything else was that simple.

Resuming semi-normal sleeping and eating patterns has given Natasha a burst of energy. Clint wants to sit in the sun and polish his weapons, but she cajoles and provokes him into sparring with her. They twist and attack all around the yard, until they are sweating and panting. She flips him over her leg and they both land on the grass, but here his size wins out over her speed, and he holds her down playfully while she struggles, laughing and cursing. "You calling me fat?" he teases.

"Yep," she says sweetly.

"I'm wounded," he pouts, leaning ever closer. She looks up at him, her red hair swirled out on the grass, come-hither eyes and smirk, and his heart skips a few beats. They freeze that way, inches from each other's noses, until he bounds up. "Come on," he says, offering her a hand, but she doesn't need it.

"Where are we going?" she asks, trailing him across the yard towards the treeline.

"You'll see," he says. She picks her way through the woods after him, practicing moving silently through the underbrush until he turns to make sure she's still there.

In a minute they come down a hill and a creek flashes sunlight up into the leaves. Clint splashes in and gives her that obnoxious teenage-boy grin. "Scared, Romanov?"

"I'm not picking the leeches off you tonight," she warns before wading gracefully in. The cool water is admittedly heavenly on her hot, bruised skin. She sighs with pleasure, sinks down until her shoulders are at the water's surface, and looks up to find she's being watched. He's stopped flailing around, water droplets caught in his sandy hair, and smiles at being caught.

He crouches next to her, the strong current pulling at them both. "How are you doing?" he asks. She isn't sure what he means, is a bit sidetracked by the dappled sun on his shoulders. "You look better," he says. "Like you're healing."

"I always do," she says, looking away, but he's right. Natasha has never had a vacation like this one, and wouldn't have believed it, but she's genuinely starting to enjoy herself out here in the middle of America.

"I know," he says, and then he's kissing her, and not only does she let him for the first time in a while, she wraps her hands around the back of his neck and kisses him back. The creek rushes around them, and birds call in the trees, and there is not a single thought in either of their heads involving New York or Loki or brainwashing or killing or dying.

When the sun gives way to clouds, they make their way back up to the house. They cook together, the way they've done a dozen times in bunkers and outposts and temporary bivouacs across the globe. It's seamless, the way Natasha fries fish while Clint cuts vegetables, passing a bottle of wine back and forth, splashing it into the cuisine as well as their mouths. Outside, a gentle rain soaks the evening, murmuring on the roof and windows. They talk about scars, the stories they wear on their bodies, shared and secret histories. The dinner turns out fantastically, and they congratulate each other with another long, slow kiss, Clint's back to the refrigerator and Natasha standing on tiptoes, catlike, to reach.

He pulls her into the sitting room and puts on the radio, and the next thing she knows, they're dancing. She can't help the smile stealing across her face, it's so ridiculous, the two assassins swinging around the safe house, the infamous Black Widow waltzing in blue jeans and a t-shirt, while Hawkeye sings Johnny Cash, his blue eyes sparkling. _Because you're mine… I walk the line._ It might be her favorite American song, even though she hates most of that music, just because he sings it so often.

Clint kisses her goodnight, and she promises to be up to bed soon. She goes out on the porch again in the dark, thinking. She knows he thinks about this when he thinks about retirement, the two of them somewhere secret, keeping house together like a mundane little family, hell, maybe kids and a dog and a white picket fence. Clint grew up this way- for a very short time, but still more childhood than she ever had- and she has to admit it has its charms. She doesn't believe they could ever be domestic, ever really be civilians, but at least they'd be pretending together.

He's so happy for a little while that he can't even sleep, caught up in putting the smile back on her face, the beauty of every little thing she does all over again, and wishing she would just get in bed with him already. But she wore him out that afternoon, and he barely has time to smile into the pillow before he's asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Paste your do

He dreams about losing control. Hot red blood flows in a river before him, and though he struggles with everything he has, his hands reach out of their own accord and soak themselves in it. _You have heart,_ the alien bastard murmurs, _you have heart, you have heart. _Before he realizes it, he's pulled his hands back and clawed at his hair, pressed them over his ears, but it does nothing except cause sticky blood to coat his face and hair. _You have heart!_ He struggles, revulsion and pain and anger leaving him breathless, and then he finally pulls himself back into the real world. It's dark, his hair is damp with sweat instead of blood, and he's in bed. His head is pounding, and he thinks to himself, _oh shit_.

Sure enough, the aching keeps building until he can't lay flat anymore. He sits up, drops his forehead into his hands with a gasp, and hears his name from the doorway. He knows it's Tash, standing there in the dark on her way to bed, and tries to think straight enough to come up with an answer. She crosses to the bed and sets a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

It feels like his skull is being penetrated by hot irons. "Ever since he was in my mind," he breathes, "I get these-" Natasha watches what little color there is drain from his face, his eyes unfocused, and steadies him.

"Shh," she says, "I know. It's okay, you're free now." She remembers the first few mind wipes they'd done to her, the faint pain behind her eyes for a few days after. It stopped happening after a while, and she's not sure if her brain just accustomed itself to being reprogrammed or if she stopped fighting it. What she does know is that Clint fought, long and hard, and the repercussions of Loki digging into his mind are manifesting as agony.

Everything in his field of vision swims red and glowing blue, the color of Loki's eyes and scepter. The tint is dizzying, and he's sweating from the pain. Everything comes in flashes, but he steps away from the bed, grabs the doorframe, makes it to the bathroom sink before retching. The next thing he remembers is collapsing back into the bed. Natasha is there, watching over him, trying to rescue him. "Try to sleep," she is saying, her hands cool against his burning cheek. She is pressed up against his side, her hands sliding over his shoulders, chest and stomach, but it isn't enough to stop the fucking natural disaster in his head. He realizes she's humming quietly, then actually singing, something soft and sweet and Russian, and he loves it when she sings, but he can't really enjoy it.

Natasha watches him go from half unconscious to unable to lay still, from shallow breaths to ragged ones, every exhale a badly concealed moan, and she can't handle it anymore. She is possessive, protective, and she has to do something. She's actually afraid of what might happen if this goes on, she is neither a physician nor a psychiatrist but this isn't safe, isn't fair, and if she could just get her hands on Loki, scepter or no scepter, terrifying or not, she would personally _end_ him.

She gets up, leaving him for a few awful minutes alone and sick, and reappears with a syringe in her hand. He opens his eyes halfway, watching her turn his hand over and insert the needle into the vein in the crook of his elbow. She empties the whole thing into his bloodstream.

It's a memory that Clint will keep for the rest of his life, along with all the others of Natasha's wicked smile, Natasha in deadly motion, Natasha lying smug and naked next to him. Natasha's face over him, the needle in his arm, and the slow ebbing of the excruciating pain. Her hair is like a halo in his fading vision, her touch, he is certain, taking away the hurting. For a few heavily drugged seconds, he is conscious of relief so intense it causes a shudder through his limp body, and then there is nothing but painless darkness.

He wakes up in her arms, his head on her chest, listening to her heartbeat. She is lying propped up on the pillows, earbuds in, fiddling with the mp3 player. For a few minutes, he is so comfortable he never wants to move again. Maybe he's died and gone to heaven. "Sleep okay?" Natasha asks.

"Yes," he says, rolling over and pulling her into his arms. She patiently lets him squeeze her, a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "What'd you give me, anyway?"

"Just some stuff I found in the first aid closet," she says dismissively, putting down the mp3 player.

He blinks. "Stuff? As in you don't know? Jeez, I guess I should be glad I woke up at all."

She rolls her eyes at him and then pushes him over, rolling on top of him. "Yes. You should." She kisses him, and he is very glad indeed. The Black Widow straddles him, her small hands on his shoulders, holding him down into the bed, wearing just a black t-shirt and silk underwear, and doesn't stop kissing him until he grabs her hips and presses the two of them so close it's like they're trying to occupy the same body. All at once the old sexual tension comes crashing back down over them, and he's breathing hard already, and the familiar gleam in Natasha's eyes means she loves it.

She absolutely loves knowing the effect she has on him, feeling the heat of his body, the haste in his fingers as he slides them up her sides, lifting the t-shirt as he goes. He pauses just below her breasts, taking in the sight of her toned abs and curved hips, and she grabs the shirt from him and whisks it over her head, tossing her hair and flinging the shirt off the bed. The nearly naked woman above him is Clint's complete and total reason to live, and she is giving him a look of hunger.

Today, they have waited so long that their favorite forms of foreplay hold no interest. He struggles out of his underwear with her sucking on his earlobe, licking his neck, her hot breath leaving him rigid. He slips one hand under her panties while the other finds its way to one perfect breast. She's already wet, anticipating, fantasizing, demanding satisfaction with her nails scratching up his back, every inch of stinging sexier. And he is nothing if not eager to please.

When he slides into her, she tenses around him already, and he whispers, "God, Tasha, give me a minute here." In response she bites down on his shoulder, provoking him.

"You like it like this," she tells him, "you're kinky, aren't you? You want it to _hurt_," and he gasps because she's dead right, because she knows him all too well, because she's in control and squeezing his shoulders hard enough to bruise as she takes him all the way in, so slowly it's tantalizing. She hisses in the back of her throat, her hair brushing his face as she arches her back, toying with him until he snaps and rolls them over, and he can feel the relief in her when he does, she's just as desperate as he is, maybe more, and he starts a steady rhythm that builds as he kisses her neck, finds that sweet spot.

"Oh," he says thickly as she gasps, pulling his hips harder and tearing at his lower back with her claws, "you forget I knew about that one?"

"Fuck, Barton," she chokes over a moan, "shut up and give it to me, I can't…" It's the hottest thing he's ever seen, Natasha right on the edge because of him, and he's got to keep it together long enough to rock her world or she'll kill him. He tangles his fingers in her hair, kissing her while shivers of pleasure run through them both, the speed, the heat, the friction driving their pulses into combat levels. He catches one pink nipple with his lips and sucks at it hard, unforgivingly, while she grinds up into him, cursing in Russian. He can't take it anymore, he needs it and now. Clint kisses all the way up from her collarbone to the pulse point just underneath her sweat-dampened hair, and sucks a bruise into her skin, running his tongue back and forth, and Natasha locks her knees around his waist and his name tears itself from the back of her throat, over and over, and at that he loses it too, comes so hard he loses track of everything for a few moments.

When his vision clears, he's lying next to her, both of them flat on their backs and breathing hard. "Impressive," she manages.

"Heh. Well… I'm quite motivated," he says, reaching over to take her hand. "What's on the agenda for today?"

"Well, at some point, a rematch," she smirks. He grins back- the way the two of them are, it's hard to tell their sparring from lovemaking, their fighting from making up. Neither of them would have it any other way. He opens his mouth and the words are right there, _I love you_, but she sits up. "I'm restless, Clint. You remember those nights in Germany, or California, when neither one of us could sleep?"

He shakes his head. "We were young and dumb, Natasha. We went looking for trouble." But he smiles a little as he says it. They'd driven out to the beach at three in the morning, or streetraced from stoplights with college kids in the big cities.

"No, Clint, we just _went_," she says, shaking out her red hair around her naked shoulders. "The autobahn… Route 1. Now I know there's nothing out here in the middle of wherever we are…" She gives him a come-and-get-me smile and gets out of bed, saunters down to the bathroom. "But at least there are no stop signs, right?"

He sighs and gets out of bed, finds some boxers and a pair of jeans. Natasha comes back in and he pauses to watch her dress, which is almost as captivating as watching her undress. She slides on a pair of torn jean shorts (Natasha owns shorts?) and a plain white t-shirt, then grabs a black jacket off the back of the door. On her way out she jams her bare feet into her workboots. He pulls on a shirt to hide his smile and follows her down to the kitchen.

cument here...


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha should be lazing around in bed still, enjoying the afterglow, but she's been lazing around for days enjoying her partner's presence (if not more) and now there's an adrenaline rush. She feels like she's finally woken up, and it feels good. "Where's the keys, Barton. I know you have them."

He pulls them out of his pocket and heads down the front steps, jingling them like he's calling a dog, and she ignores that, bounding after him. She lets him take the driver's seat and climbs into the passenger side. The car is SHIELD issue, an inconspicuous black color, unwashed, but it's been retrofitted under the hood, and it's capable of plenty. Clint pulls it out of the gravel drive. "Nearest town is ten minutes that way," he says as they come to the two-lane highway. He puts on his sunglasses.

"And the second-nearest?"

"About a half hour the other way," he says. She points the second direction, and he obeys her command.

She puts down her window, and he does the same. All of a sudden, he's seventeen again, a little punk with a rocky past and a thing for thrills, with a borrowed car and a hot girl, hurtling down the Iowa back roads. He flicks on the radio, but Natasha's the one who turns it up. It's still on his favorite station, and as he brings the car up to seventy, he can't help singing. "'Don't let me cross over, love's cheating line… I'm tempted, my darling… to steal you away…'"

Natasha glares at him from the passenger side, but he knows she doesn't really mean it. She loves to pretend to hate when he plays guitar, when he hums old rock and roll and slightly newer country when he's cooking, cleaning his weapons, brushing his teeth… all the time, really. Natasha has no affection for American music whatsoever, but if she had to, it'd be the kind of stuff Clint sings. Old—fashioned, and hopelessly romantic, not unlike the archer himself. She puts her right hand out the window, cupping the rushing air, and studying the green countryside. It's full of prairie ditches and cornfields, here and there stands of trees and little farmhouses on the horizon.

And Clint is next to her, one hand on the wheel, singing through a smile, "'I know one step closer, would be heaven divine…"

"You are such an idiot," Natasha struggles to say with a straight face, but he's such an overgrown kid at the moment, he gets that way when he's drunk sometimes, and she's laughing before she knows it, and he puts his free hand on her knee. She throws her head back and really laughs, and they're flying down the road with the wind in their hair, laughing and holding on to one another, and they could be any couple out for a drive in the country.

Clint realizes, then and there, with Natasha curled up in the passenger seat, the sun flashing off her eyes as she smiles, that he isn't afraid anymore, for the first time since New York. He's spent the whole time, especially the nights, living in fear that it's not really him thinking his thoughts, not really him making his choices, that somehow he's still Loki's. It's all him now, and he laughs with the pure relief of it, almost has to run a hand under his sunglasses. He throws his arm around her, and she leans into him and puts her bare feet on the dash.

Thirty quick minutes later, they're in a little town with one main street, brick buildings and a theatre, two gas stations at either end of the street. He takes her into the little café, they eat burgers and fries and kick each other under the table. Natasha puts his sunglasses on, looks at him over the top of them with such gravity as they slide down her nose that he snorts into his milkshake. She cracks up at that, and he wonders if he's ever seen Natasha Romanov laugh this often. She's brazenly pilfering spoonfuls of his chocolate shake, daring him to do something about it, and he tells her he'll make an American girl out of her yet. She shakes her head vehemently- "I like my vodka too much for that, Barton"- and he catches the waiter and the two guys in the booth across the diner watching her, looking starstruck.

He puts cash down on the table and says, "Come on," sliding one hand around her waist, just above the curve of her ass. They walk out, and Natasha lets him get to the car before sidling away.

"Don't get all protective on me now," she warns.

He raises his shoulders. "I prefer the term 'possessive'," he suggests. She cocks a hip and puts out a hand. "What?"

"Keys," she says. Seeing his expression, she adds, "Don't make me come over there and take them from you." He throws her the keys and sulks into the passenger seat. Natasha gets into the drivers' side, and smirks as he puts on his seatbelt too. "Oh please. You'll live, I promise."

She pulls gently off the curb, stops at the one stop sign on the way out of town delicate as can be, and he knows she's getting a feel for the car. The thing that scares Clint Barton about letting Natasha take the wheel isn't that she can't drive, it's that she _can_, and she knows it. Maybe it's sexist, but he's never trusted a girl with a car.

And as they head out of town, Natasha brings the speedometer up to fifty, sixty, and keeps right on going. Clint's fingers tighten on the door, and she turns her head and looks right at him for a few long seconds as they fly down the highway, and she's hot as hell but damn if she isn't crazy too, reminding him after their normal little lunch date that she's still the most dangerous thing he's ever laid hands on, and he gasps, "The road, Tash-"

"Oh hush," she says, "I haven't killed you yet." She gets snappy when he gets scared, and that'll just make her edgier. He tries to stay calm, but she's flooring it up and down a rolling set of hills, and at every hill crest while she's hugging the center line he imagines a semi speeding up the other side, his stomach dropping every time they hurtle down another empty downhill.

"You're going to get us pulled over," he grits out, feet braced against an invisible brake in the front of the well under the dash.

"Better get off the road then," she says, music in her voice, and barely slows before hanging a screeching left right in front of an oncoming truck, sliding them onto a gravel road on two wheels, and Clint almost starts praying there and then.

"Fuck, Tasha, fucking hell, knock it off," he chokes, "this is a dirt road, you're going to lose control, if you wreck this car…"

Mercifully, she slows up a little, saying, "It's a rental, Barton. Would you quit it? I've never crashed a car in my life. Never had so much as a speeding ticket or a parking violation. I seem to recall that making me several ahead of you." Natasha likes to brag about her flawless driving record, but that's of little comfort when she's riding a set of curves like a Formula One driver.

The radio has switched to something Stark would listen to, AC/DC or Guns 'n' Roses or one of those others, Natasha doesn't know, what she does know is that she can feel her heartbeat, strong and steady, and she's alive. After a few miles, she's got them back on the highway, and her taste for speed is satisfied as she brings them back to the safe house. Whatever it is that drives her to walk the edge has been fed, and she's content to park the car neatly in front of the porch. She reaches over playfully and undoes her partner's seatbelt, slipping the keys into his pocket herself. He's leaning back against the headrest, fingers white on the door handle. "Oh come on," she sighs, "no one was even shooting at us."

"I'm dizzy," he mutters. "Never again."

"You say that every time," she says, and gets up on her knees to kiss him.

"That doesn't fix anything," he calls after her as she saunters up onto the porch. He gets out of the car, checks to make sure his feet are steady, and follows her in. The minute he walks in the door she spins him and pushes him up against the wall, and no matter how displeased he was a minute ago, he is helpless not to kiss her back, pick her up and carry her to the couch, and his pulse doesn't even get a moment to slow down before Natasha is working him over, and it's even better than that morning.

They shower, it starts to rain, and they sprawl out on the couch and turn on the television. On the way to one of the movie channels, they catch the early evening news by accident. But he doesn't move to turn it off, and neither does she. Maybe it's that here they feel safe enough, distant enough, to handle it. There's only a quick New York blurb anyway, something about beginning to rebuild and memorial services being set, but they get through it together. Maybe this is what healing feels like. Outside the skies darken with thunderclouds.

Natasha makes stir fry and he opens a bottle of red wine, and just then, there is a huge crack of of lightning and the lights go off. "Ah, damn," he says, looking around in the dark kitchen. His sharp eyes adjust fast, and he picks out the table and sets down the bottle of wine. The thunder is just a second behind, deafening, just the way he remembers from his younger days. He looks across the kitchen and sees Natasha backed up against the refrigerator, a huge steak knife in her hand, looking desperately into the blackness.

"Tasha," he says carefully, "it's okay. I'm right here, but I'm not coming any closer until you set that knife down." She's still blind in the dark, and he can see her fighting the paranoia they'll both take to their graves as a result of living the way they do, always looking over their shoulders. For a minute he's worried that all the progress she's made in the past week back to her usual self has been wiped out again by bad memories, that maybe he really will lose her to the fear.

But she silently composes herself, reaches over to the sink and sets down the knife. The minute it leaves her hand he crosses the room. "Come here," he says, and her eyes have adjusted enough to pick him out as he puts his arms over her shoulders, her back against his chest, and holds her. Natasha is already silently cursing herself for that little show of fear, she's never been afraid of the dark in her life, she _is _the thing that goes bump in the night, and anything that thinks it might be scarier has another think coming. But it never hurts to be cautious. They close all the curtains, Clint goes upstairs and comes back with a lighter he still carries from the days when he used to smoke, and they light candles. Clint brings his bow downstairs too, along with her Widow's Bite, and the two armed assassins sit at the table, and have a candlelight dinner.

The electricity comes back on an hour later, but they just blow out the candles and shut them off again, and curl into bed together as the storm passes. They sleep an arm's length apart, hands resting lightly on the other's body, enough to feel their steady breathing, as if they've been that way their whole lives.


	5. Chapter 5

In the morning, he finds her gone again. He goes down to the kitchen, humming a few bars of Cash, and starts making pancakes. They both prefer Belgian waffles, but there isn't a waffle maker. Natasha comes back flushed from a run- she's a morning person- and goes straight upstairs to shower. He has coffee on the table when she comes back down, scoops up her mug and plate, and installs herself in the porch chair again before he realizes she's come through.

He takes his own plate out on the porch and finds her sitting comfortably, watching the morning dew glitter on the grass, wearing a sundress. He stops right there in the doorway and looks her up and down. Natasha Romanov lives in combat gear, except on the off occasion she's undercover, in which case she's typically the femme fatale in stilettoes and skin-tight silk gowns. He almost doesn't recognize her in the soft blue cotton dress, with ties at the shoulders and lace at the hem. She could kill him with her bare hands, or a dozen household items, but here he stands, wordless, and trying to fix the image in his mind. "It's the dress, isn't it," she says dryly, and puts a forkful of pancakes in her mouth.

He shakes his head, and she rolls her eyes. "It isn't mine, I found it in a closet upstairs. Running low on clothes."

"You look-"

"Ridiculous?"

_Beautiful. Fantastic. Gorgeous. Lovely. _"Amazing," he says. She rolls her eyes again.

"Sit down and shut your mouth," she says, a crooked smile on her face, and they eat breakfast, watching the sun climb higher in the sky. Afterwards, Clint draws a lopsided target on a sheet of paper and the two of them stand two hundred yards deep in the woods, talking trash to each other as they sight down an arrow and a pistol.

Natasha puts a handful of quick shots in a cluster so tight to the center they are one big hole in the target. The archer takes his time, releasing with an almost gentle precision. Arrows thud into the target, outside of Natasha's bullets, and she blinks. "You losing your touch?"

It isn't until the last arrow strikes home, dead center, that Natasha can squint hard enough to pick out the pattern of arrows. He's written his initials across the target. "Showoff," she spits as he slings his bow over one shoulder, smirking.

They shoot until their hands are numb from the vibrations, and then they go down to the creek and let the cold water run over their feet. "I'm going into town tonight," he says.

"What for?"

"Told you I have some old friends around here. I promised I'd look them up if I was ever around, and here I am. I'll be back by the morning," he tells her.

"You better be," she says. "I thought we were on vacation." She smiles slyly.

"We are," he agrees. He takes the car and the keys; she locks up the house behind him and goes into the kitchen. Without him there, she doesn't really feel like eating, but she knows he'd make her, so she puts a frozen pizza in the oven and takes the mostly full bottle of wine out of the fridge. She curls up on the couch, weapons in easy reach, and watches James Bond shoot ridiculous things and seduce women. Clint would appreciate the irony. And she doesn't get edgy at being alone once.

It's only just past eleven, although the bottle of wine is empty and currently a comfortable glow in her veins [Natasha is difficult to intoxicate], when she hears the car door slam. A minute passes before she can hear him fumbling with the key in the lock, and she begins to suspect he's drunk, which she doesn't think she'll mind at all. She smiles at the sound of the door opening, his boots in the hall. "What, you miss me?" she calls, turning the explosions on TV down a notch.

"Oh, Tash," he sighs, "I always miss you." The door shuts behind him and that's it, silence. Something in Natasha tingles and she springs off the couch, strides into the kitchen. He sinks to a sitting position against the door, little droplets of blood on the tile floor.

"What happened to you?" she demands, the buzz she's been cultivating all evening vaporizing as she drops to his side. He's holding his right side, although blood is trickling down his left wrist too, but she's more concerned about the former. She pushes back his hands and jacket. She thinks it's two separate wounds, they aren't gunshots, more like knife wounds, and though they're not bleeding as badly as they could be, if he's been bleeding for very long at all [ten minute drive to the nearest town, she thinks] he shouldn't be losing any more. "You wreck the car too or can I drive you to the ER?"

"No," he says. "Just field dressing." Seeing the glare she gives him, he manages, "Too many questions."

"SHIELD will take care of it," she says, pressing the jacket into his side. He gasps in pain.

"SHIELD wasn't involved," he says. "Like I said, too many- aah…"

"Sit tight," Natasha says, "I'm going upstairs for the field kit." She runs up the stairs, finds the hall closet full of far too many drugs, rolls of gauze, surgical instruments, and needles to be the average country house's medicine cupboard. Standard safe house issue. "I told you to sit," she snaps as she comes back into the kitchen to find Clint trying to drag himself into a chair. He collapses into it, looks up at her with a half-smile.

"Sitting," he says, gesturing at the chair with one hand while clutching his bloody side with the other. "Really, Tash, nothing's broken or punctured, just a little cut up… and you're a good field medic."

"You're better than I am," she says. "Any particular attachment to that shirt?" She barely waits for an answer before slicing it off him. "And you going to tell me what happened or leave me guessing?"

"I'm a man of…_shit_… of mystery," her partner says as she assesses the rents in his right ribcage.

"That bottom one's going to need a couple stitches," she mutters to herself. "Thought you were meeting friends, Barton."

"Yeah- ow- so did I," he sighs. "Turns out they got it into their heads a few years ago I was responsible for killing one of their buddies. Circus kids are stupid loyal, you know, and they set me up." Natasha doesn't ask, or care, whether he was responsible or not. She does her best to clean the blood off him, although he's still dripping on the kitchen floor, and threads the needle, her hands almost shaking with anger. She should have been there. He'd asked her if she wanted to come along.

She drugs him up and he gets quieter. "This will hurt," she says, and slips the needle and thread through one lip of the gaping cut. He grips the table and says nothing. "What was this, a switchblade?"

"Rapier," he says. "Good old fashioned duel. You know how long it's been since I fenced, Tash?"

"Years," she replies. He used to be nearly as handy with a sword as with the bow, but these days there's not much need for it.

"Years," he agrees.

"You finish it?" she asks, knotting off the last stitch and ripping a bandage out of its sterile package.

"Yeah," he says, eyes closed. "'Course." Good, she thinks. The last thing we need is more loose ends. She tapes up his left shoulder too, gives him a shot of antibiotics, and that combined with blood loss is enough to put him high as a kite.

"Come on," she says. "The couch is yours." He gets to his feet on his own, but all but passes out after. Luckily she's there, and strong enough, to support his weight into the other room. Carefully they slide onto the cushions. She offers leftover pizza, but he picks at it before falling asleep. A movie about samurai is playing quietly in the background, and Natasha debates moving him. He's all right, really, just worn out, but she still decides to let him be. She gets up, puts away the med kit and brushes her teeth before coming back downstairs with a pillow, shutting off the tv, and stretching out on the floor by the couch.

Natasha Romanov does not seem to have a nurturing bone in her body- how could she, the way she was raised?- and her bedside manner typically leaves something to be desired, but she can't explain why she enjoys watching over Clint when he's sick or hurt or even just resting. She studies the curve of his shoulder, his cheekbones and fingers protectively. She knows all his old scars and new ones, some of which she was the artist of herself. She lies awake for a long time, reassuring herself that his breathing is steady and that he isn't straining the stitches, and finally falls asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

The minute a half-awake Clint stretches lazily from sleep, he realizes two things. One, that his partner immediately stirs on the floor by the couch, and two, that it feels like a tiger took a chunk out of his right side. He winces and stops stretching, but she's noticed. "Morning, sunshine," he says. "What are you doing on the rug?"

"Sleeping," she retorts.

"You could have gone upst-"

"Barton, do I look like a delicate princess to you?" Natasha warns, and he knows if he doesn't answer 'no' quick enough he's likely to get a black eye, injured or not. He says no. She rises from the floor in one fluid motion, without touching it, and says, "You want coffee?"

"Yeah," he says, carefully sitting up, testing the waters. He's sore, but alive, so he gets up and shuffles into the kitchen. He sits at the kitchen table, watches her ass as she makes coffee like an acrobat, sliding mugs across the counter, twisting to fill the water, opening the coffee package, spinning back to shut off the tap. He quickly looks away as she sets the mugs down on the table in front of him. His is hot and dark and tastes like a hellish heaven, and he wonders if there's anything this woman can't do. "Damn, that's good."

She's putting sugar in hers, and flutters her eyelashes at him over the rim as she takes a sip. She sets it down and says, "You're grounded."

"What?" he laughs.

"You're staying here for the rest of the week, I'm going to pick up some groceries today."

"Why?"

"Next time I let you leave you'll come back missing a limb," she says. "You sit on that couch and heal so Fury doesn't fire me for bringing you back in more pieces than you left." He scoffs and sulks, but both of them are teasing. Nonetheless, he's lounging on the couch, channel-surfing, when she takes the keys.

"Don't wreck my car," he calls. "Oh, and watch for bloodstains."

"Might be your blood, but it's not your car," she calls back.

When she gets home, carrying two bags with enough food to last them another week, the house is quiet. She puts the cold things in the refrigerator and moves silently down the hall, then up the stairs, hand on a throwing knife strapped to her shoulder just in case. At the top of the stairs, she peeks into the main bedroom and almost drops the knife. It's all she can do not to laugh.

Barton is in the bed with a laptop, literally surrounded by pillows and extra blankets piled on top of themselves. He looks up and sees her expression and she could swear he almost blushes. "Hi, Tasha."

"Where did you even get all those pillows?" she asks, bewildered.

"It's a nest," he says apologetically, and at that she loses it. She laughs until he starts giggling too, and then there's nothing for it but to crawl up into the hawk's nest and get comfortable. Clint puts the laptop aside and the two of them sprawl there in the pillows.

"You're ridiculous," she says. "Really, does anyone else realize how ridiculous you are?"

"Nope," he says smugly. "I save it all for you." She gives a long-suffering sigh, and realizes how soft the nest is, how perfect the temperature of the room is for relaxing. He nudges her. "Sleepy?"

"Mmm," she says noncommittally.

"We can take a nap," he says. She means to tell him naps are for missions, or for children, or that he's the biggest five-year-old she's ever known, but instead, she presses her back up against his, and falls asleep.

Two hours later, when she wakes up, he's still there, awake and patiently waiting for her. "Hey," she says, pressing the sleep from her eyes with her fingertips.

"Hey," he replies. He's got the laptop out again, and he's playing solitaire. Spider solitaire. He sees her amused look, and says, "I couldn't get an internet connection."

"I just didn't peg you as the solitaire type," she snorts.

"Well, Ms. Romanov, I'll have you know I'm something of a card sharp," he says, with a mysterious look. She rolls her eyes at that.

"I think I've actually got a set of cards in my bag," she says thoughtfully.

And that is how the two assassins end up sitting at the kitchen table, dishes forgotten in the sink, a bottle of whiskey on Clint's side and a bottle of vodka on Natasha's. They're staring each other down over the cards in their hands, the tension in the air hasn't been this thick since the last time they tried to kill each other.

"What do you have to say to _that_?" crows Natasha, grinning wickedly.

Clint takes a drink, studies the cards again. To his credit, he is a good player. "You're cheating," he says.

She runs a foot down his shin under the table. "Bravo," she purrs. "Now if you can figure out how, I'll be really impressed." He glares at her. They play until two in the morning, until Clint gets all romantic with a silly smile, and Natasha's flushed and talking a shade too loud. He fumbles with his cards, gives up, and throws them down. She springs up from the table, and he follows, and they push each other around a bit, throwing gentle punches and then, less gentle kisses. Neither one of them will remember getting to bed in the morning.

But at four-thirty, Natasha is looking into her partner's pale blue eyes down the muzzle of her favorite pistol, and his arrow is trained on her heart. His eyes are lit from behind, a blue that wasn't there before. It's Loki. Barton's face is etched with hatred, and she knows, because she knows his tells, that he really is going to shoot her this time.

She says his name, and it comes out soft and weak and pathetic, but she hopes for a split second it'll bring him back to her- and then she hears the snap of the bowstring, and instinctively she pulls the trigger. The report is deafening, and she screams into the terror of knowing she's about to die. But when she gasps in another breath, everything is confusion. She doesn't know what happened to the arrow, maybe it hit her, maybe it didn't, but she's alive and Clint is lying on the ground, dark blood pulsing from the bullet wound in his chest. The glow of possession is gone from his eyes and as the life fades from them as well, he looks up at her, stunned and hurt, and Natasha sinks to her knees beneath the weight of her horror and pain.

Clint's heart stops at the sound that wakes him, it's agonized and desperate and it's Natasha, and he flips over and grabs for her on the other side of the bed. "Tasha!" He's already running his eyes over her, checking for injuries, and she snaps awake at his touch, panting and choking, her eyes wild, and tears on her cheeks. She seizes him and seems to do the same once-over to him, staring at him in a way he can't quite fathom. "You were dreaming, weren't you," he whispers, and she pulls him to her so hard he can't do anything except squeeze her back, and after a long second, she pushes him roughly away, flies out of the bed, and though she's already half way out the door, he catches the sound of a sob.

He has half a second to wonder if he should let her go before knowing that he can't, even if he should he can't and has never been able to, and he jumps up and follows. "Natasha." She slams the bathroom door in his face and he can hear the water running.

She sinks to the floor again, the rush of the tap drowning out her heartbeat, and lets herself see the dream again, and again. She cries the way she hasn't been able to in a decade, even when she wanted to. She cries because it's unfair, and because it hurts, and because she's scared, for herself but even more so for him, and because there's nothing she can do about any of it. The dream is over, but reality is still there, and it's not all that different sometimes.

In a minute she gets up and looks in the mirror. She looks horrible, and she soaks a washcloth in the freezing water and presses it directly to her face, forcing herself to breathe normally. Then she unlocks the door. He's waiting her out, leaning against the wall and looking at her with the questioning, loyal gaze of a puppy. "I'm good," she says. "Let's go back to sleep."

They crawl back into the four-post bed and he cautiously puts a hand on her waist. She doesn't pull away, or threaten to cut it off, so he leaves it there and inches closer. "I know you too well," she says. "You're not going to leave me alone until I tell you." Barton has a way of prying information out of her that no one else does. She hates it. She's a world-class spy, but give this man ten minutes and he'll have her admitting to everything before she realizes what's happening. "I killed you while you were Loki's," she tells him.

For a moment he looks touched, and she regrets telling him already. He just says, "I don't blame you." She scoots a little closer into the crook of his arm. "For the record, if he- if that was permanent… I'd want you to do it. You, personally."

Natasha doesn't argue this, she can't even think of it. She just looks into his eyes, their real, genuine blue, and says, "It won't happen. Never. Never, never."

"Not ever," he echoes, and she lets him hold her close while she fights back the tears again. They sleep, and he knows better than to mention it in the morning.

Dawn finds Clint alone in the bed. Down the hall, he can hear the shower running. He gets up, tries to decide where he feels like going, and realizes it's not anywhere in the house. He goes into the guest bedroom, yanks open the sticky window, carefully removes the rusty screen, and slides out onto the roof of the porch. He sits carefully, and looks out for miles around. It feels like something has snapped into place inside him.

He realizes he was wrong as Natasha gracefully steps down onto the roof next to him. _Now_ everything's where it belongs. They watch the sun creep above the trees. Her hair is wet from the shower, and she's wearing one of his t-shirts. He likes the way it looks on her. "This is the longest we've ever just had time to ourselves," she observes.

"Yeah," he says. "Is that okay?"

She gives a little nod. "Yeah," she says. "It's just different." He asks what she means. She replies, "You, me, us… it works, somehow, but we're usually half a world away until we get called together for some operation. And then it's business, and missions, and amazing sex and a little fun, and then back to business."

"Sometimes," he says, "I wish there didn't have to be any business involved."

She smiles and shakes her head. "Oh come on. We're the best at what we do. The world's always going to need saving, Clint. And what would we do instead, retire?"

He smiles. "I'm going to be too old for this shit any day now, Tash," he says. At that she scoffs, because she's older than he is, although it doesn't show. "I'll be… something boring, an accountant or something. A sales rep. And you can be… hmm… a dancer. No, a ballet teacher." She raises a brow. "Jujitsu teacher?" She laughs.

"We'd be bored," she reminds him, "to tears." And he knows it's true. "You aren't really serious, are you?" she asks, more seriously. "About that whole settling down thing?"

He looks over at her, wild and beautiful and absolutely lethal, and says, "No, not really. Come on." Then he thinks better of it. "But… we can still be settled the way we are, can't we? I mean, together?"

"Yes," she murmurs, "I think we can."

The two of them sit on the rooftop, hardened warriors that they are, and damaged souls that they are. Natasha will always be a shade paranoid, always double-checking buildings and looking over her shoulder. Clint will always have nightmares that lead to migranes, and a faint worry that one day he'll wake up as someone else. But Natasha is, and always will be, stronger than the fear, and Clint will never be broken by it. They will always walk that line, they are as they've always been, complete opposites and exactly the same. A perfect match. They've got one more week of vacation, but they're already restless, until she suggests a road trip. He looks over at her, tells her with complete and total honesty, "I love you," and her smile puts the sunrise to shame.

fin.

Note- thank you so much for reading, sorry about the slow updates recently. I've been thinking about branching out my fics into my other fandoms...


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